Nutritious

How to spell nutritious

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce nutritious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nutritious mean?

1. adjectiveContaining the substances that a body needs to stay healthy and grow; nourishing.

Nutritious in a sentence

• The canteen now serves more nutritious meals at lunchtime.

• Oats and lentils are cheap yet remarkably nutritious.

Where does nutritious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb nutrire, which meant 'to nourish, to suckle, or to feed', the same root that gives us 'nurse', 'nutriment', and 'nutrition'. From that verb Latin formed the adjective nutricius (sometimes spelled nutritius), describing something 'that nourishes' or pertains to feeding and rearing. English adopted the form 'nutritious' in the seventeenth century, applying it specifically to food that promotes health and growth. The spelling trap lives in the ending: the sound is 'shus', but it is written '-tious', because the 't' of the Latin nutri- root softens before the suffix rather than being spelled with an 's' or 'c'. Keeping the 'nutri-' beginning firmly in mind, the same stem you see in 'nutrient' and 'nutrition', is the surest way to remember how it opens.

How the word is built

• nutri- (from Latin nutrire: to nourish, feed)
• -tious (adjective suffix forming 'full of, characterised by')